Successful Businesswoman Inspires Entrepreneurs in Tanzania
Fatma Riyami has been named East African Businesswoman of the Year 2017 at the annual All Africa Business Leaders Award ceremony to honour business leaders who have made a considerable impact on their industry and community. The award ceremony, staged in partnership with CNBC Africa, salutes business game changers for their commitment to excellence, and […]
Women Sea Salt Producers in Indonesia Cooperate to Seize New Economic Opportunities
Traditional sea salt production has been practiced on the island of Lombok in Indonesia’s West Nusa Tenggara province for generations. It is labor-intensive work generally done by poor women like Mini Asmayanti. Mini earns less than $2 a day. This modest income, along with that of her husband, a fisherman, provides for them and their […]
Time to Re-energise the INGO Model Through Structural Innovation
The international NGO sector faces significant disruption to its business models in the next decade. As IARAN has noted, INGOs must think deeply about what kind of organisation they want to be in 2030 if they are to keep pace with shifts in demography, technology, climate, geopolitics and much else besides. For UK-based INGOs, such […]
Making the Most of Interesting Times – and Achieving the Global Goals
As Robert Kennedy remarked in 1966, “Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind.” For many of us, the first months of 2018 will go down in history as a similarly interesting […]
A Nigérien Entrepreneur Finds Her Niche in Camel Milk
Last month, I travelled to Niamey, Niger’s capital, where MCC Country Team Lead for Niger Kristin Penn and our Nigérien partners are hard at work on MCC’s $437 million compact to improve access to water for agriculture and livestock and expand access to markets. Around 80 percent of Niger’s population relies on the agricultural sector for its […]
Female Employees Fast Tracked From Line Workers to Supervisors
The readymade garments (RMG) industry in Bangladesh is the greatest contributor to female employment in Bangladesh; over 3.2 million of its employees live at the bottom of the economic pyramid (defined as people with less than US$10 per day in purchasing power in 2015 US dollars). Recognising this, at DBL Group we have focused on […]
The Transition from Aid: Are Businesses Up To The Challenge?
The fabric that makes up international development has many threads, each making a vital contribution. Fortunately the edges around the boxes of ‘who does what’ are more blurred than they were even a decade ago when the transfer of financial resources and expertise usually flowed from ‘North’ to ‘South’. Further blurring of roles is occurring […]
A New Age of Startups: How Tunisia’s Millennial Entrepreneurs Are Boosting the Economy
Like graduates all over the world, Tunisians leave university and want to find a job. Unlike many others, they can’t. The country’s unemployment rate hovers at around 40%, with one third being university graduates. Traditional jobs are few and far between. This situation has been leading many young people to turn to entrepreneurship as a […]
The Counter-intuitive Nature of ‘recovery’ Lending
Microfinance, where small amounts of money are lent to people to start or grow a business – often in developing countries – is a familiar concept. When delivered responsibly, it helps people to earn an income to support their families. What happens though when disaster strikes a community that is depending on microfinance for its […]
Growing Small Businesses Through Employee Volunteering
By Josh Bicknell, CEO and Co-Founder, Balloon Ventures and Rachael Barber, Head of Community Development, Citi EMEA In April 2016, Citi partnered with Balloon Ventures (Balloon) and VSO to launch the Volunteer Africa programme where bankers work with high potential micro businesses in East Africa, providing support and advice to help them grow. For Citi, […]
A Collective Approach for Last Mile Distribution
By Emma Colenbrander, Practical Action Billions of people worldwide lack access to everyday products that are fundamental to a better life. Products like solar lights, water filters and clean cooking solutions are transformative for poor families, and essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. A range of businesses – called ‘last mile distributors’ – work […]
Apply Now for the 2018 Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty!
Do you work for, or in partnership with, a business having a positive impact on one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? Are you particularly proud of one your initiatives? If so, be sure to apply for the Unilever Global Development Award, supported by Business Fights Poverty! I’m proud that for the […]
New Resources to Speed Employees Up the Intrapreneurial Learning Curve
By Beth Jenkins, Challenge Director, Business Fights Poverty At any given time, in any given company, there can be hundreds of employees with ideas for profitable new products, services, and business models that also create value for society. These would-be “intrapreneurs” come from all different backgrounds and roles, and many have never started a new […]
Supporting Entrepreneurs in the Pursuit of Peace
As a marketing executive, New York advertising executive Sabrina Prince has launched many brands. And after 15 years in the field she was looking to contribute her expertise to the global good. A Google search for “entrepreneur, peace, volunteer, women,” brought Sabrina to Bpeace, a nonprofit that matches business experts with entrepreneurs in challenged economies […]
The Agricultural Models We Want Tomorrow
Rana, 45-year-old Egyptian mother of three, sells her vegetables on a wooden cart at the side of a dusty and bustling road in the heart of the Sayeda Zeinab district of Cairo. She stands there from sunrise to sunset every day to earn enough money to feed her children. Despite a relatively steady flow of […]
Access to Energy Through Mobile Is Changing Lives
Over the last decade, the rapid growth of the mobile industry in developing countries has surprised observers. Access to mobile has increasingly outpaced access to basic services such as energy, water and sanitation. In fact, due to the slow expansion of the traditional energy grid, 1.2 billion people around the world still live without access […]
Meet the Winner: The Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security
Interview with Dr Filippo Bassi of ICARDA and Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security Winner The winner of the 2017 Olam Prize for Innovation in Food Security epitomises what is possible when you put the farmer at the centre of all you do. The winning research by Dr Filippo Bassi of ICARDA (the International […]
Meet the Winners: The Louis Malassis Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food Security
Interviews with The Louis Malassis Scientific Prize for Agriculture and Food Security Winners Scientists hold some of the key answers to so many of today’s agricultural challenges at their fingertips. Our support for this community is a vital if we are to deliver the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Agropolis founder Louis Malassis knew this, long […]
Delivering on the Promise of Inclusive Business
Back in November 2008, on a hot, dusty day in Dar es Salaam, I vividly remember the moment I met Lillian Kessy. I was immediately struck by her confidence, dignity and determination. Only a year earlier, Lillian was in a desperate financial situation. By the time I met her, she was busy building a small […]
Leveraging the Power of Skillanthropy
A conversation with Marco Ambrosio, North America Growth Strategist for SapientRazorfish. Javier Guerrero of Happy Punk Panda, a Salvadoran digital media company, came to New York through Bpeace’s Fast Runner Program. His top request? To meet with the top digital agencies includingSapientRazorfish. How did SapientRazorfish become a Bpeace Host Company? Before I came to SapientRazorfish, […]